Beginning of time
Crisis On Infinite Earths is a 1985 comic book series from DC Comics. It featured nearly every single member of DC Comics history existing up to 1985 banding together to stop the Anti-Monitor from destroying all of creation. Summary Since DC Comics had existed for fifty years, its "history," meaning the in-universe history as it related to what was considered the "mainstream" continuity of its current comic book stories, had become quite confusing. To fix some of the problems and to mark the publisher's 50-year anniversary, DC commissioned the acclaimed Teen Titans creative team of Marv Wolfman and George Perez to fashion a 12-issue series that would not only tie up loose ends and create a more cohesive modern "history," but properly integrate characters that DC had acquired from other publishers over the years, like Captain Marvel, Black Adam, Blue Beetle, and Captain Atom. To explain and validate years and years of conflicting storylines, characters, and to simply explain how there had been heroes like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman running around with the same identities since the 1930's, DC had already established the concept of multiple "Earths" which existed in parallel dimensions and shared many events and people in slightly different circumstances (for example, while "Earth-1" had a 34-year old Batman in 1985 as part of current continuity, "Earth-2" was the home of the original Batman, who had debuted in the 30's and fought in World War Two.) To this end, DC created the Monitor, a being with the ability to see all forms of reality, including the multiple universe (similar to Marvel Comics' Watcher.) His enemy was his evil twin, the Anti-Monitor, who sought to destroy all universes but his own anti-matter universe and rule what remained of creation. As with most super-hero tales, the battle came to a head on Earth--all of the Earths, as according to DC. By the end of the conflict, many heroes had either died, retired, changed identites, or even erased from "history" altogether in more extreme cases. In the end, an amalgamated "Earth-1" universe and its anti-matter counterpart would be all that remained, but the Anti-Monitor was defeated, mainly at the hands of the original (Earth-2) Superman and Darkseid. Reaction The results were mixed. Though it was a noble effort to rearrange and condense fifty years of stories that literally went all over the place, there were still loose ends and events explained in ways that did not quite satisfy fans. For one, the death of Supergirl in Crisis #7, while noble and memorable, seemed to lose importance in the wake of a reborn universe that did not remember that the character had existed at all. The Charlton characters like Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, and the Question, were somewhat haphazardly tossed into modern DC lore without much forethought. The popular Barry Allen Flash was killed off, albeit heroically. Also, with so many stories "erased" from continuity, it was difficult for many to pick and choose which iconic events that longtime fans took for granted as being part of a certain character's history (chiefly Superman) still had validity and had actually occured within the revised continuity. DC further complicated its reboot with the 1995 Zero Hour mini-series, which merged and erased even more heroes. DC also re-introduced "parallel" dimensions via the invention of "Hypertime," which served essentially the same purpose as the "Infinite Earths" in that stories with peculiar or different outcomes could occur outside established continuity, using DC heroes. Still, the series was well-received overall and led to several important character arcs within DC Comics. It led to John Byrne's highly successful retooling of the Superman mythos, the passing on of the Flash identity to Wally West, and while it did leave several holes in the continuity, most of these holes were left intentionally, to be filled in later. Crisis was the most ambitious mini-series of its time, and the cross-company storyline inspired several successful imitations, both within DC, Marvel Comics, and later, other companies as well. The effects of the actual Crisis itself were mostly left to the muddled memory of a few characters, but in 2005, DC decided to celebrate another 20 years and tie up some more loose ends with the successful Infinite Crisis series, which was most notable for depicting the final fate of the Golden Age Superman and the death of the modern Superboy, Connor Kent. It also left room for a follow-up series sometime in the future. Relation to the DCAU Crisis does not involve the DCAU, particularly because it pre-dated the beginning of the DCAU Batman: TAS by a decade. However, certain effects of the Crisis can be seen within the DCAU: *Charlton Comics characters the Question and Captain Atom are members of the JL--twenty years after Crisis they are simply an accepted part of DC continuity now. *Wally West is the Flash--it's not really clear if the Barry Allen Flash existed, but there is a Kid Flash suit in the Flash Museum. *Superman is essentially as powerful as he was after his origin was tweaked following the Crisis. He is still one of the most powerful characters in the DCAU, but is nowhere near as god-like in power as he came to be depicted by the 1970's. *Lex Luthor, for years depicted as an evil genius who had met Superboy as a teen, ruled a planet called Lexor, and essentially been a stereotypical mad scientist, was reimagined post-Crisis as a brilliant, scheming, but outwardly legitimate businessman. This is the version that was introduced in Superman: TAS. *Captain Marvel, a former Fawcett Comics is a part of the DCAU. Before 1985, he was largely relegated to guest appearances as his status within DC continuity was not established. Following Crisis, the Captain was integrated into the DC Universe as a whole, complete with an origin and eventual membership in the Justice League. *The Anti-Monitor interferes with the beginning of the universe in Crisis; his hand is visible through a swirl of energy and cosmic force at the moment before the "big bang" that creates the DC Universe. A giant hand is visible at the beginning of the universe during the JLU episode The Once And Future Thing (part 2) and has been confirmed as being the hand of the Anti-Monitor.